Chapter Twenty Two

It was past noon when they at last reached the regiment.

Captain William J Hamilton the third was the duty officer and he stared at amazement at his friend.

“I cannot credit my eyes! Why Dan Daniels is that you after all this time? Where the blazes have you been?”

“Prisoner of war, Bill, may I present Captain Brad Younger? Brad was with me in the stockade at Fort Briscoe. Brad this is Bill Hamilton, the pride of the regiment.”

Bill shook Brad’s hand.”I am only the pride of the regiment since Dan left us now all the women around will abandon us lesser mortals and turn back to Dan.”

Bill conducted Dan and his small group to the Colonel’s hut.

“Good heavens, Dan my boy! Where have you been? Melissa was totally distraught when you disappeared! She will be delighted to have you back.”

Daniel introduced his small group to the Colonel who then insisted that Dan come to supper that evening so as to relate his adventures since his disappearance and of course, Captain Younger was also invited.

They went up to the Colonel’s quarters together and Dan knocked upon the door which was almost immediately flung open and an excited Melissa Bridges threw herself into Dan’s arms. Dan spent some time detaching her insistent arms from around his neck so that he could present Brad Younger to her.

She curtseyed prettily to Brad and said: “Any friend of Dan Daniels is a friend of mine. You are always welcome here Captain Younger.”

Dan spent the whole evening explaining his fictitious story about being captured by Quantrill’s raiders and eventually being handed over to Robert E Lee and then sent to Fort Briscoe.

“Tell us about Robert E Lee, Dan.” Melissa insisted. “Is he the ogre that everyone says he is?”

“From what little I know of him he is a perfect gentleman. Did you know that President Lincoln offered him command of the US Army in sixty one? He probably would have taken it except that Virginia seceded from the Union and Lee followed his home state into the Confederacy.”

“Dan,” Colonel Bridges said.”You have returned just in time. Only today I received a cable ordering me to move the regiment east to join the army that General Ulysses S Grant is gathering to face up to Lee in the coming Spring. Grant intends to have an army bigger than Lee’s. What do you think of Lee’s chances against Grant?”

“Lee should never be under estimated, sir. Time and time again he has out-maneuvered our forces even when we greatly out-numbered him. His main weakness is his supply lines particularly when it comes to armaments. The south is not as industrialized as the north and they can never produce the heavy armaments and munitions that the north can. The final battles will be won by artillery. The south has the cavalry but cavalry cannot face up to artillery.” Daniel was confident of his arguments because Lee himself had disclosed them to him.

“You know, I think that you are correct, Dan.” The colonel said gravely. “Our cavalry still has its part to play, I do not believe that the regiment is obsolete but were I a young man, I would become an artilleryman.”

“Sir,” Brad Younger said. “I am an engineer but I have had experience in artillery and explosives Could we not form a horse-drawn artillery unit with light, highly mobile guns that could be positioned quickly to face a cavalry or infantry charge with grapeshot?”

“That is a good idea, Captain. I will see if I can get the ordnance. Getting the right equipment is always the bane of good ideas in this or any other army.” The colonel responded.

After a very pleasant evening, Dan and Brad returned to their quarters. As they were walking Brad remarked.

“Melissa Bridges is a very attractive girl, Dan. She seems to be extremely fond of you.”

Dan laughed. “Yes, she is. She even told someone once that she has an arrangement with me and that she expected it to become permanent. She is still very young and was due to go to finishing school in London when last I was here. I wonder why she is still here.”

“Dan, please do not take offense at this but if you have no serious feelings for her would you object to me calling on her?”

“Of course, not Brad, why I would welcome it: I am by no means ready to make a permanent arrangement with any girl. I am still too young for that.”

“Do you think that she would allow me to call on her?”

“I think that she is at that stage in a young woman’s life where any presentable young gentleman is acceptable and you are certainly presentable and, if I may use the term, eligible.”

On the following day, Daniel was summoned to the Colonel’s office.

“Captain Daniels, I was very impressed last night at your forecast of the outcome of this war and your prediction relating to the future of cavalry. It showed mature thinking and an excellent grasp of military strategy. I propose to put you forward for promotion to Major and to offer you the position of my executive officer. You will not know this but Major Willis, my current executive officer, is very ill and unlikely to recover, if his doctor knows what he is talking about.”

Daniel did not particularly enjoy the idea of extensive office work but he knew that Lee had sent him to gather intelligence and an executive officer has a much greater chance of attending pre-battle briefings than does a company commander.

He tried to look enthusiastic as he said.

“You do me too great an honor, sir. Surely you have more experienced officers than I?”

“I do have a bunch of majors that try to stay as far from the war as possible and do not have a single original thought in their heads. I need someone young, capable and above all a good leader. Your men show exemplary loyalty to you, every one of them has asked if you are returning to your company. No, you are the man I want and I am making you brevet major until your promotion is confirmed by headquarters.”

“Thank you sir, I hope that I can live up to your confidence in me.”

Daniel’s new duties started at once especially since the move to Grant’s army required immediate attention. His days were filled with army forms to be completed, requisitions and orders to be made out and briefings to be attended. It did not help that virtually all the majors were intensely annoyed that the ‘young-whippersnapper’ had been preferred to any of them and most put it down to the Colonel favoring his future son-in-law. They all followed an obstructionist policy that dragged out anything that had to be done.

Daniel knew that the colonel had made the decision to use him because without an executive officer much of the work fell upon the colonel himself. He also suspected that the colonel knew that no matter who he had chosen for the post the others would have all been upset anyway.

The colonel made a habit of fobbing off the complaints of the majors by telling each that he could not have spared men of their experience from their current positions.

None of this helped Daniel. He was run ragged and worked from dawn until well-after dark. Jack was his most useful ally since he wandered around the camp unhindered by anyone since he was not military and listening everywhere. No one noticed him around and if they did, they assumed that he did not know what they were saying. Yet, he went frequently to the town to collect things for Daniel, because the Quartermaster major dragged his feet about supplying anything to Daniel, and both received and sent coded cables that went indirectly to General Lee.

Eventually, despite all the obstructions that had to be cleared by direct orders from the colonel’s mouth since written orders got ‘lost’ or misplaced by sergeants as the whipping-boys for their majors, the regimental move got underway.

“Don’t worry Major,” The colonel said to Daniel. “It still got done quicker than if Major Willis had handled it.”

To the colonel’s surprise, confirmation of Daniel’s majority came through before the move began. This was partly due to the workload currently placed upon the HQ staff so that they had begun to handle things to get them out of the way instead of bothering to scrutinize them and obstruct them as they normally did.

“The majors are all annoyed that your promotion was approved.” Jack reported to Daniel.

Daniel shrugged. There was nothing he could do about the majors. They were all senior to him but he did instigate a system whereby every order was acknowledged as it was received and therefore could not be lost, misplaced or blamed on non-delivery. If acknowledgement was not received then Daniel’s staff, the most senior of whom was Sergeant Major Jock Macpherson, sent a repeat and if that was not acknowledged personal delivery to the major concerned was made and a signature obtained.

Once the majors understood that they could not get away with ignoring Daniel’s written orders signed on behalf of the colonel, things began to return to normality.

Sergeant Major Jock Macpherson was a gem. He was a large man and although he was not aggressive in his demeanor, people felt intimidated by him. Even majors were known to quail before his stare. To Jock, Daniel was the perfect officer and he gave him his absolute loyalty. Much of the motivation that spurred the regimental re-location came from the Sergeant Major. Daniel had only to suggest that anything be done and Jock saw to it that it was.

“You have a very effective team, Major Daniels.” Colonel Bridges complimented him. “What happened to that Corporal of yours that was shot when you escaped?”

“He has recovered, sir. It was a close run thing but having him in detention quarters helped enormously. It was not really his fault. He took the pellets because they helped with his pain. Riding a wildly bucking cart with a broken rib could not have been enjoyable.”

“What do you have him doing now?”

“He carries orders and messages to the companies. He is very insistent and always gets an acknowledgement of receipt.”

“I have been meaning to comment upon that. Things are running so much more smoothly. I am astonished at the results you are getting from the companies. We had been too long in little backwaters, keeping the peace. The only excitement we ever had was the occasional Quantrill raid and we were always too late to catch any of them.”

There was one person in the Bridges family that was not happy with Daniel’s work. Melissa felt aggrieved that after being away from the regiment for so long Daniel had so little time for her. So when Brad Younger started to call on her she welcomed him as a sort of silent revenge upon a totally unaware Daniel. As Daniel had said, she was very young and finding a new beau was not a major disruption of her emotional state. By the time the regimental move was completed, she was as deeply involved with Brad as she had ever been with Daniel.

Daniel was oblivious to Melissa’s change of heart. He had found his feet as the regimental executive officer and he now had to work his way into the structure of the army of the Potomac itself. He made it his business to be known to Major General Meade and was always ready to put himself out and to deliver anything that Meade needed.